I am now the proud owner of a fake iPod Nano.
I knew it was fake -- the seller made it quite clear in the listing that it was a nano-clone and not made by apple.
It cost £25.
And joy of joys -- it don't use iTunes. I HATE iTunes.
It's a 2GB one (genuine - I checked it).
Plays mp3 and wma files.
and the following:
FM radio
Record,
Ebook (text only)
Picture,
Phone Book,
Games,
Movie (MTV AND AMV only)

I shall only use it for mp3 audio books -- so easy to just drag and drop a folder -- none of that iTunes hassle whereby the books play out of order unless you work hard at it.

I haven't got any movies to try but I understand they don't look very nice.

The eBook reader seems to have a line length of 16 characters - any more than that and it splits words up and places the rest on the next line.

But the mp3 player is great.

The worst thing is the manual. It's incomprehensible -- written in quaint English by some Chinese person with a primary school knowledge of English.
Luckily I did a search on Google and found a really good 42 page manual written in English by Garry Whittaker which was a godsend.

It arrived with an American charger (I live in the UK) so I will have to charge it up using the USB cord connected to my PC. It was fully charged when it arrived.

So far, I don't regret my purchase at all. Time will tell, but for 25 quid I felt it was worth the risk.

Lol, I totally understand about the friggin audiobook issue with iPods. I had to create special playlists in iTunes to get it to work properly (not too sure what their issue is unless they're trying to read some tag I'm unaware of). I tried to find a nice bulk-retagger to change the tags to what the file names were, but I think I just settle with arranging the playlist. Wouldn't mind having a nano or color screen iPod, but I guess I'll just cont. to use my PDA for short clips.

Thanks for the info!

Edit: Just checked the eBay link, too funny! These even say iPod, though the wheel looks a bit different. How does the wheel work, same as a regular one? What about the screen, does it look nice when displaying images?

The wheel is not the same as the iPod one - it's a clicky one -- although if you hold it down it scrolls through the tracks. Seems a bit slow to me. The thing I do like is it remembers where you left off. So when you switch it on again you are at the right place to continue listening to your audio book.

The picture viewer is pretty good for a small screen. I should think the quality would depend on the original to a certain extent.

I was in thailand recently and the sheer number of fake ipods etc was overwhelming. Not just apple ipods were faked thou, I found fake sony, samsung, LG as well as other brands that don't actually make mp3 players. Many of them are very similar players with different logo's on them, but the apple fakes are pretty well done.

And the price, generally pretty decent... not quite sure about warranty status thou......

I've only listened to one audiobook on my iPod. It played fine with no changes and remembered it's place even if you went and listened to other music and came back. I bought it through the iTunes store so not sure if that made a difference or not but it seemed pretty seamless to me.

It is an interesting fake. The packaging looks great, but the product itself is like they didn't even try much, the screen isn't even the same size or ratio. A good deal on a 2gb player though.

I think there is a simpler way with applescripts but it escapes my monday morning brain for now.

Of course, this is an iTunes thing, and will not apply to fake ipods etc etc etc.

micro

Definitely, thank you for the info! You don't know how many times I had to physically write down the track & position of my place in an audiobook before switching to something else on my iPod. It sucks that the iPod isn't smart enough to read the MP3 tag and see the MP3 should be treated as an audiobook. Stupid iPod, can't you read?! Lol, thanks again; also one quick question... how long does it take to re-encode, say a 9-hour audiobook to the AAC-format?

If you just need to convert MP3s to AAC, you might try Audacity. I haven't tried such a conversion with it, but I know it will do them. It has been extremely usable for what I've used it for: converting tapes to CDs.

It may or may not get you any speedier results, but I thought I'd toss it out for the interested. Its price is certainly right.

I think the problem is that audio books under itunes come from audiable, and not from apple. I'm not sure but I think the bookmark is contained within the file itself, hence the need for the .m4b instead of m4a.

If you are a mac user there are some applescripts to do the magic for you.

But, it appears that in at least newer versions of iTunes (I'm using 7.1 on a mac) there is a checkbox to "Remember Playback Position". Get info on the AAC file (must be AAC, not MP3) and then go into "options".

Another useful option is the ability to skip the file while on shuffle. This means you don't get audiobooks mixed up with music, and ensures that you don't accidentally have shuffle active when listening to audiobooks.

Of course I havent tested this under windows, so sorry to those folk. If you try it and it works please post and let everyone know.